Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-01-16
nvriffen Music.

| me beginnings OF music, Us Oh every
art, are 20 be sought in nature. I'm
written music came before written
music the -hird-song before the rOU-
| LdC the wall of the wind in the forest
before the dirge the "innumerablc
voices" and the silvcry tinkle OF the
! woodland brook before man 5 first imitl-
tive attempts at melody. Even i'll the
present high development of the art OF
music we may still trace these simple,
intuitiye beginnings. That music is
considered the finest and truest which
suggests nature, which affects us as do
the voices Of nature. SO, too, the high
! est form of reproductive art, OF what
ever kind is to initiate the sights and
sounds, the physical impressions we get
from nature, with fidelity which
makes them seem real. In fact We
refer art to nature as the soundest
method of criticism. We recognize the
fact that ant, no matter how highly de
velopod, has its beginnings in the natu-
raj, visible world about us.
The study of this unwritten mu@;c-
| this music in nature to which l have
I II Ollt VI llit lilOHl leloA
of cmployments. 1t leads one to make
most charming discoveries, TO trace ont
relations between the expressed and
the unexpressed which else were never
dreamed of. To take a simple in
stance / have found the beginnings
the hey-nOtes, if you choose, some
times an entire bar-of several of the
| moot I,o,,4; eel &c ON, cton1or1 o,,oro4i.
airs ia the songs Of JjrdS. There IL
one bird q am not naturalist enough to
name it, which sings SO many notes Of
a certain popular air that ] am ire
sistibly impelled whenever l hear it to
whistle out the measure. This bird IS
a shy haunter of moist, tangled cover,
and i have never been able to approach
near enough to make out its plumage
or its shape. But it is by no means
the only bird whose song suggests some
musical passage The robin has a song
which it sometimes sings i'll the deep
woods, or away, at least, from dwellings
and the hustle of the busy world, that
is extremely musical, and which, [ am
sure, must somewhere have been re-
produced in composition, though | have
not yet been able TO identify it.
The music of nature is, of course,
merely fragmentary, rudimentary, 1t
suggests, but does not satisfy. The
moaning Of the wind in the trees is not
n diTgC, but it suggests a dirge. II has
the inspiration of funeral music i'll it.
The melodies of nature are at best
Kolian, incoherent, and broken; but it
is from them that the truly poetic CON
poser gets his ideas And the nearer he
approaches these very melodies in the
fidelity Of his reproduction, while solv
ing and completing them, the more will
his music stir the hearts and rouse the
imaginations of men.
The ear, with little practice and by
means Of a habit of attention, can readi-
~ detect music in nearly all the pleas
ant sounds of nature. The splash of
the waves on rocky beach, the noises
of the stirring leaves, the chorus from
the pools and fields in summer eve
nings, the repeated cries of all the ami
mate creatiOn-these, and a thousand
other sounds and murmuTs, are full Of
unwritten music. We live and move Ill
vast auditorium, where Gods musi-
clans are always playing to MS, if we will
but listen Cur greatest composers are
our best listeners.
I'VE have often noted with interest
phases in musical compositions identi-
cal with the songs of birds, and have
often been in doubt whether or not the
composers knowingly took them from
these songsters of nature. For instance,
the theme Gf we may 50 call it, of one
of the most beautiful arias in Faust
f, has been sung from time immemorial
by the wood-robin. The curlew had
whistled cold Dan Tucker" over the
waters of our coast for centuries before
the "pale face" put foot upon this
continent; while the partridge or quail
at certain seasons Of the year whistled
a familiar bugle-call long before the
" sounding brass called men to arms.
There are many other examples, all full
of interest to the acute and attentive
musical ear